To feel alive
by elaiel
Summary: Everybody deals with the aftermath of trauma in a different way. Tagged Young/Rush as that's where it ends but actually: Brody, Eli, Varro, TJ, Cole, Garcia, Matt, Chloe, Becker, Inman, Greer, Volker, Lisa Park, Camile, James, Rush, Young.
1. Chapter 1

Brody and Eli are drunk. Wasted.

Eli is trying to explain the plot of a movie about intelligent ants. Brody isn't really following a word he's saying but Brody doesn't care.

They are sprawled on Brody's bed, listening to Europop, propped vaguely up against the pillows and each other to remain something at least approximating vertical, and he's just listening to Eli talk.

Eli found him in the core room sitting staring at the screens, everyone else having drifted away in the post traumatic glow subsequent to Destiny finally dropping into FTL, taking them away from the danger. He ducked his head, shooting Eli a look he knew screamed awkwardness, last one left as everyone else went off to more interesting things, even Rush. Eli lifted a flask.

"Can't celebrate on my own." The young man says hopefully.

"What were you planning?" Brody asks.

"Getting drunk, talking crap and trying not to pass out in a puddle of my own puke?" offers Eli.

"Sounds good." Says Brody.

They make the trip via the still room to secure a sufficient supply to get them appropriately wasted, drinking the whole way. Finally by the time they make it to Brody's quarters, having already swung past Eli's closer quarters and decided that are too small and full of kinos, they are pretty wrecked, already leaning on each other for balance.

The younger man continues to fail to successfully explain the movie, called Phase something Brody thinks, but he doesn't care. They're alive, and sometimes its just about not being alone.

Varro meets her coming out of the infirmary. Cole has arrived, the patients are as stable as they are going to be and she's been in there for eight hours straight. She looks at him and he reaches out, wiping a finger across the smudge of dried blood on her cheek.

"You need a shower." He says, running his fingers down the tense muscles of her neck. "And to relax."

His fingers rub her taut shoulder, pressing in just hard enough she can feel the muscles begin to burn and start to relax and she stares at him, not sure how to proceed.

"No strings attached." He says. "That's the phrase isn't it?"

They stare at each other for a moment and she leans into the touch, as one handed his fingers wrap around the back of her neck, working out the tension. Varro sees it in her eyes the moment she makes her decision.

He steps forward, taking her arm and moving her into his side a hand snaking across her shoulders to continue rubbing at tense muscles. She lets him guide her to the showers at the farthest reach of the inhabited area, rarely used. He is gentle as he strips the bloodstained clothes away, leaving them in a heap with his own and pushes her gently into a cubicle where with infinite patience he washes the blood away and rubs the tension out of her shoulders and back as she leans against the cubicle wall.

She turns to face him, eyes seeking his, eyebrows furrowing a moment before she draws him to her and it's gentle and soft, a blanket of warmth and comfort against the bloody aftermath of violence.

Garcia and Scott are in the makeshift gymnasium, stripped to their pants, damp with sweat, circling each other. A lunge, a strike, a block, a laugh and two swift steps back.

They circle, dart in, a flash of movements and this time it is Scott who is rolling across the floor, rolling up on his feet without stopping and circling back in, another pass, another block, another laugh.

Beyond them half a dozen or more of the soldiers wait their turn in the "ring" marked out with duct tape on the floor.

Chloe watches from the sidelines, in a deep yoga stretch she can feel all the way down her legs, perfectly balanced, perfectly aware, perfectly understanding the need to be conscious of one's body, to feel it work, feel it move, just to feel alive.

Dale Volker looks into Greer's face.

"Do you trust me Rabbit?" Greer asks.

Lisa runs her hands over him, making him moan, sliding fingers into him and he knows as Greer leans in, takes his face in his hands to kiss him, that this is going to be incredible now and damned uncomfortable in the morning.

But it's going to be incredible now, and there will be a morning.

"If you cook it like that it'll lose all nutritional value!"

"If I don't, it'll be inedible." Becker yells back, trying to sound at least half reasonable.

This argument is pointless, they've been fighting over the same point for over twenty minutes and he can't even remember how they started. Food technology his ass, if it didn't taste at least half reasonable, what was the point in cooking it? She walks up to him and lays out her point of view again, this time punctuating every point with a poke to his chest and he just looks down at her (and it's a long way down) and can't help but smile as she gets angrier. God Inman is hot when she's pissed.

"What are you smiling at?" she demands.

He gives up.

"You are so cute when you are pissed." He says, and putting a hand either side of her waist, lifts her off her feet and kisses her, as her feet kick weakly and her hands press against his chest in shock, then stop. Her hands grab his shoulders, and she pulls herself to him, wrapping her legs round his waist. Finally they come up for air, look at each other and speak in perfect synchronicity.

"Not in the kitchen!"

Laughing he puts her down and they decamp to somewhere more private.

Camile sits on the observation deck, feet tucked up underneath her, as Vanessa James leans into her side, tucked under Camile's arm. The other woman has finished crying, her face is dry but her eyes are still red, mourning a colleague not able to dodge fast enough. Another one left behind.

Vanessa's so strong, so tough, that Camile is amazed she is willing to let Camile see her like this, but in the final analysis everyone needs someone there eventually. And she's willing to be there, wants it, even if it is in these circumstances, needs that connection, needs to be needed, to know that she's part of…what? A community? A family?

She hugs the other woman close and they stare out at the FTL light and are simply there.

"Why do we do this?"

Rush is sitting in the chair, elbows on his knees, palms pressed together in front of his face, index fingers pressed against his lips. His head doesn't move but his eyes look up as Young walks into his room without asking. Young slaps his hand on the door closure and it shuts behind him.

"You know as well as I do this is playing itself out all over the ship." His hands part and he rubs under his jaw with the back of his fingers. "We almost died, we survived, just, and all over the ship people are seeking out the people that remind them they're alive, no matter how appropriate that is."

Young steps forward, eyes dark, head tilting forward as he speaks.

"Except you." He looks down as he speaks, then back to Rush for a response.

"Well I didn't need to go looking, did I?" His eyes display a dark amusement.

Young steps up to him as Rush leans back in his chair, reaches down, grabs him and hauls him to his feet by the front of his shirt.

"So," Rush asks sardonically, "are we drinking, fighting or fucking this time?"

NB: The movie Eli is trying to explain is called Phase IV and it's truly awful.


	2. Chapter 2  Brody and Eli

**Title:** To feel alive (Brody and Eli)

**Author:** Elaiel

**Rating:** PG

**Warnings:** Drunkenness, slash!fail

**Characters:** Brody, Eli

**Author's notes:** I wrote these drabbles for the stargateland "sequence this" challenge a while ago and then wrote a different set in the end. Anyway, I kept thinking about the situations I'd put the characters in and where that situation would actually go. This is one of the extensions.

Brody and Eli are drunk. Wasted.

Eli is trying to explain the plot of a movie about intelligent ants. Brody isn't really following a word he's saying but Brody doesn't care.

They are sprawled on Brody's bed, listening to Europop, propped vaguely up against the pillows and each other to remain something at least approximating vertical, and he's just listening to Eli talk.

Eli found him in the core room sitting staring at the screens, everyone else having drifted away in the post traumatic glow subsequent to Destiny finally dropping into FTL, taking them away from the danger. He ducked his head, shooting Eli a look he knew screamed awkwardness, last one left as everyone else went off to more interesting things, even Rush. Eli lifted a flask.

"Can't celebrate on my own." The young man says hopefully.

"What were you planning?" Brody asks.

"Getting drunk, talking crap and trying not to pass out in a puddle of my own puke?" offers Eli.

"Sounds good." Says Brody.

They make the trip via the still room to secure a sufficient supply to get them appropriately wasted, drinking the whole way. Finally by the time they make it to Brody's quarters, having already swung past Eli's closer quarters and decided that are too small and full of kinos, they are pretty wrecked, already leaning on each other for balance.

The younger man continues to fail to successfully explain the movie, called Phase something Brody thinks, but he doesn't care. They're alive, and sometimes its just about not being alone.

They continue talking long past the point where Brody would normally have fallen asleep from sheer exhaustion. Brody has watered down the hooch so they can drink for longer without making themselves sick, but they run out anyway. They keep talking still sprawled on the bed and Eli is now talking about his mother, and how his father walked out and how much he wishes he had time to get to know Ginn. Brody finds himself reciprocating, telling Eli about his own parents, now elderly, and the messy history of his divorce, long before he came to Icarus.

Collapsed on the bed face to face, dead drunk and worn from a day of adrenaline highs and massive lows, it doesn't seem out of place to be sharing these confidences, even if sometimes the conversation loses a little coherence.

Well maybe a lot of coherence. The conversation falters and they stare at each other, practically nose to nose, drunk on both alcohol and exhaustion.

A kiss, a single press of dry lips, slightly chapped against his. He is startled, blinking in confusion as the young man realises what he's done and pulls back to see his reaction, worry tightening round his puppy dog eyes.

Brody reaches out as Eli jerks back and catches his arm.

"Whoa, whoa, it's okay, don't panic."

"I'm sorry!" Eli looks like he's about to roll off the bed and run. "I didn't mean to!"

Not that he would run very fast considering how drunk they are. Brody looks at the young man.

"It's alright Eli. I get it."

He gets it, Eli is drunk, tired, lonely, and Brody is the only person in quite some time who's got this close to him, and no doubt it's been a long while and there are no girls here... They've been drinking off and on all night, more off than on to be honest for the last couple of hours, and sharing jokes and history sprawled on Brody's bed for want of any place else to go.

Brody is drunk, tired and lonely and though he isn't entirely sure he wanted Eli to kiss him, it hadn't freaked him out at least. Come on, the other two members of the science team are both sleeping with Greer and that hasn't freaked him out, even when he'd caught Volker and Greer necking in the core room without Park in sight.

He stuffs a canteen of water in Eli's hand.

"Drink this. You'll thank me in the morning."

He watches as Eli drinks over half the bottle down and hands it back, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Brody swallows the rest of the water down himself, knowing there'll be a hangover from hell tomorrow despite this.

"Roll over." He says, shoving drunkenly at Eli's shoulder.

Eli rolls over unsteadily.

Brody slides up behind him throwing an arm over him, pulls the covers over them, and curls up against him. He can feel the kid's tension which suddenly ebbs away, all in a rush and Eli grabs Brody's hand and pulls it to his chest, holding it.

"Go to sleep Eli" He says sleepily. "I'll be here."


End file.
